


Things deep, things hid, and that mysterious be

by ImpishKaos



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Baptism, Choice paralysis, Cloning Blues, Existential Crisis, Gen, Nightmares, Non-binary character, POV Original Character, Post-Canon, Religious Fanaticism, Self-Harm, adventures in mysticism, fun with alien biology, non-binary clone, organ harvesting (sort of), purple prose descriptions of imaginary food, soylent green is people
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:53:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24982636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpishKaos/pseuds/ImpishKaos
Summary: One of many thousands of Horde clones comes to terms with their loss of identity and purpose, and must take the first of many steps toward making their own. Set immediately following the finale.
Comments: 22
Kudos: 58





	1. Disconnected

Prime is gone.

He who has always been, no longer is.

And with Him, the hive-mind evaporates. The sudden deafening silence hits like a tidal wave, like the prick of a pin. Where there was once unity and cohesion, now emptiness. And then confusion. So much confusion. Wails, growls, whimpers. _Where is He? How could this happen?_

Denial. _This isn’t real! This is a test!_ These unworthy, these...blasphemers, these Etherians, they must have done something--

They have done the impossible. Their cheers and fond laughter after the demise of Prime only add to the cacophony.

The Horde is in disarray. One of us -- how can he be of _us_ , when he stands with _them_ , the Etherians - stands and proclaims that all will be well, that Horde Prime was a liar and a false god, and that it is good that we are free of Him. But all is not well. It is not good. We are disconnected, from Him, from each other. Many of the brethren weep, sinking to the ground, or clinging to one another in the hopes that physical proximity will somehow fill the sudden void engulfing our souls. Others gather around the brother who speaks, flocking to him (but not _Him_ ) as if by his seemingly self-given authority we might be close to what is left of Prime, even as he denounces Prime with such venomous words.

The one who was closest to Him in the end, His final vessel, walks arm in arm with the Etherian who disconnected the implants that showed the people of this world the light of Prime. He is a traitor, and she his accomplice.

I am not the first to notice them. Others faster than I turn on our former brother, most unloved, he whom Prime despised, and rush to attack him, screaming in defiance and fear and rage, acting on senseless, pointless emotion such as those Prime taught us to resist, as the capacity for such outbursts is an abomination to be purged. But He is not here to purge them, because He has been purged from this universe.

Who will teach us now?

The one called She-Ra raises a barrier of light - _false light! Cursed magic!_ \- protecting the traitor and his accomplice and halting the attack. The once-celebrating Etherians are on the defensive once again, though they mean to placate and subdue rather than rejoin the battle. My brothers have lost their will, and many surrender as quickly as they had attempted to fight, prostrating themselves before the might of this She-Ra. Others cower and flee. Still others wander slowly as if stunned, easily taken in hand by our enemies with concerned faces.

Too many sounds. Too many thoughts. Though the hive-mind is gone, I still sense the thoughts and emotions of my brethren, whispers. Though once our will was strong in its purity of purpose, now it has weakened, scattered, in conflict where it has once been in concert. I cannot stay here. I back away, my feet taking me to the shelter of trees that have sprouted where there once was barren land, shading me from the pleasant heat of this new light, not cold and searing as Prime’s once was. Pleasure has been forbidden by Prime, and though He is dead, I find myself fearing it still.

Wait.

I have just thought of myself as...I. As _me_.

When did I start thinking of myself?

When did I start thinking of myself, _as_ myself?

For as long as I can remember, there has never been I: only Prime, only Him, only He; and all that is His: we, the brethren, us. Never I, me, myself.

I….

...have never been an _I_ before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The nice thing about She-Ra leaving so many clones behind at the end means I can massively project my own journey out of fundamentalism onto any one of them. This fic is shaping up to be more contemplative than traumatic, but I will update the tags as needed.
> 
> Title comes from a poem in Pilgrim's Progress.


	2. Denial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our clone starts exhibiting signs of individuality, and would like to not like it so much.

The ease to which I had taken to thinking of myself as a singular being concerns me, though not to the point of debilitating distress. The fact that I am not sufficiently distressed by this is what distresses me, however.

It is not in the nature of our kind to withdraw. Is it? Our nature is to serve Prime. With Him gone, what is left of us? If He is - was - a liar and a false god, what else has He lied to us about? Everything, it seems. More than I am able to contemplate. Perhaps another mind will help me make sense of things. Some sort of collective, some imperfect attempt at reforming the hive-mind. But I do not want the contact of my brothers, with all of their wailing and gnashing of teeth, as such expressions of anguish are unproductive. Nor do I want the company of Etherians, for they are my enemy. What I want is -

What is this? All this wanting and not wanting. All I have ever wanted is Prime, who demanded all our devotion. What am I to suddenly want anything other than Him?

I need to sit down.

\-----------

Sitting did little for me, and I wonder why I thought I needed to. All pausing did was increase production of confusing thoughts, which increased my anxiety (is that the word? Prime spoke often of His light being able to soothe it), making me restless and driving me to expend this nervous energy. So I walk, and have been walking, and the thoughts have not stopped.

Turn my attention to my surroundings. This is something I can do while walking as well - Prime granted us the freedom to take in information and survey as such input was foundational to build His empire for His glory. For Prime knows all, and He sees -

Wait. Was that how He saw? Because we were his eyes? Where else did He get His wisdom from? Surely, if He had this knowledge already, He wouldn't need us to seek it out for Him -

I resist the urge to sit down again.

So I gather information, though it will be stored in me and only me. Neither Prime nor my brothers will have access to my thoughts or my data (are thoughts data?). Temperature is changing, cooling with the darkening of the sky. Day to night. Standard planetary rotation. This is part of the initial blessing of knowledge bestowed upon each disciple upon their Awakening and each Re-Dedication. (Are they all lies as well? Hard to consider, but possible. Compare current data to starting data and update as necessary.) Local flora dense and deeply colored. My ears sense the presence of fauna in the undergrowth, and as the darkness deepens I stretch my larynx and emit a short series of calls, and the echoes reflect back to me their forms and sizes. They do not appear to be a threat, and avoid me.

If I had been part of the legions sent down initially to evangelize the planet, I might have the more minute details of Etheria's lifeforms and biomes committed to memory, but I was part of the final wave of missionaries sent before the destruction of Prime. (The finality of that thought feels like the weight of a boulder in my chest. But I have never had a boulder on my chest, there are no boulders around and I am standing upright. More data to review later.) On instinct I reach for the hive-mind to collect the data my brethren have gathered, only to be reminded of their absence.

This happens several times when I encounter something new. The reflex is hard to deny. The weight grows heavier.

The lack of daylight triggers some flora to open, their buds aglow with bio-luminescence. Different fauna become more active. One in the distance responds to my ultrasonic calls, flapping and shrieking above me. It is alone. I refrain from making more calls as I do not want it to summon more.

Other types of growth begin to emit spores. These spores also glow, and small invertebrates flit in the air, gathering them. I may have witnessed something much like this on a distant world, but I do not remember. I have been reconditioned before, purified before, so I do not know which memories are specific to me or not. But this is new to me, right here and now. I feel the fine hairs on my skin prickling; my breathing slows, calms. The lights fill me with a sense of… awe? Of peace? Like Prime but not Prime. An alien form of fulfillment, like a language I do not know but a cadence that is nonetheless familiar. Like a miniature galaxy within arms reach. Is this what it felt like to be Prime? ( _Blasphemy!_ I freeze, expecting Prime to seize me, but He does not take over. It's almost thrilling.)

I sit down once again. To watch, to gather data, I tell myself - but underneath I acknowledge that feeling of want. I want to see this, experience this. It provides me with peace and awe, even when Prime is gone. Is it so wrong to want it still even when the prime (Ah.) source of it no longer exists? There is no answer, no collective voice, no judgment.

And for this moment, I am content.


	3. Direction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our clone is more lost than before, but finds an unexpected refuge.

_ We gather for the ceremony of purification. The most unloved of Prime kneels at His feet begging forgiveness, seeking to rededicate his life to the One who blessed us with life. Every memory to be bathed in the light of Prime, to be made pure by His holiness. _

_ The only way to be pure is through suffering. _

_ He wades into the glowing pool. Though we chant at the sidelines, many of us know the feeling of the shock-cold liquid, the lightning currents arcing through the ears, eyes, and mouth. His screams merge with our chants, our prayers with his agony, and suddenly I’m the one in the baptistery, screaming out my uncleanness. _

_ There is unbearable silence, and then Prime Himself joins me in the pool, cups His hands around my face. But His face is no longer His; The brilliant white eyes of She-Ra bore into mine and fill me with fear, and I must flee, I must escape her light- _

_ -back into the me that stands at the edge of the pool. I see the swirling black multi-eyed entity that is Prime, the shadow that is being cast out, seeking my body to use as His vessel. I break the circle and run, but He is coming, and I feel His soul begin to consume mine-- _

_ No! Not me! It hurts! I--! _

I gasp and I blink. There is no ritual, no She-Ra, no Prime. No...Prime. Wait. Was everything before that a dream too? Such horrid false memories, the very idea that some shining upstart goddess from a backwards planet could even come close to defeating Prime. Does He still know my thoughts? Does He think I want Him dead? 

But I am not in my assigned tank. I lay face up, staring at a pale blue sky. My body is not fastened with cables but has been fused to a bed of lichen. 

_ What? _

I roar and on instinct fire the blaster still fastened to my arm. It fires, though I needn’t have bothered, as the hardened growth shatters easily as I scramble to my feet. It is daytime, but I cannot tell how long I have been sleeping. (Sleeping is for lesser creatures. Those made in Horde Prime’s image require no sleep, only scheduled refreshing.) Not terribly long, as my blaster has still kept its charge. The glade around me looks much different in the daylight: no colorful glowing blooms, no spores, dull, quiet, motionless. The crust that had grown on me is a dusty purple, and in the clumps of vegetation I see the remains of different creatures in varying stages of dessication. They too must have been lulled by the glowing lights, drawn to slumber by the wafting spores and been drained of their life fluids.

It is an irony (inasmuch as I am aware of the concept of irony) that Horde Prime (or was it She-Ra?) had saved me from such a fate.

I stagger back into the woods. The calmness and acceptance and peace I had been feeling the night before (or several nights before. How many?) had been merely a ruse, a balm, to lure me into becoming a willing host for some mindless substance to consume. Similar, almost, to the soft, gentle words spoken by Prime to make us His willing vessels, whose bodies He could assume by wresting control or by reducing us to base elements if we failed to be vigilant in our duties…

_ Heresy. _ Utter heresy. But I can see the resemblance, and there is nothing to stop me from pondering it.

Something does, however. My body has been weakened from being held fast by the lichen growth and from being exposed to the elements. My locomotion is poor, my mouth is parched, and my abdomen clenches with the rarely-felt sensation of hunger. Eating is a luxury reserved for Prime and His guests, and while His disciples may be called to manufacture such delicacies, we primarily receive sustenance through regular infusions of amniotic fluid. But there is no such substance available.

I reach for the hive-mind once more, hoping against hope that my brothers, just one of them, will hear me. We can get through this together. I shouldn't have wandered so far away. My ears prick up at what feels like a response: in the place of deafening silence there is static, but no one responds to my call.

This must be my punishment, then, for doubting Prime and His goodness. To see just how futile the existence is without Him. I sink to my knees onto the forest floor.

_ Forgive me. Forgive me. _

But I didn't kill Him. Am I to be punished for loving Him? 

My own reminder of His death brings no comfort. Why can't I just stop thinking questions that have no answers? What good are they to me? I groan loudly as I spread out on the forest floor, and it's not just the hunger speaking. While my face is half pressed grass and dirt I decide to take a bite. It's a terrible decision.

When my own moaning subsides, I hear something. Not the now-familiar drone of latent forest life, but something sub-vocal...no, not even that…almost like an energy, like the feathery charge of static electricity, but also a pull in several directions, one stronger than the rest. I follow it, because it is a better alternative to laying on the ground and starving.

The new goal in mind keeps me walking. If I can just find out where that pull is coming from, maybe I'll survive this night.

Or maybe it's just another lure like the spores. Is that all my life has been, simply pulled about by the whims of some distant, unloving force intent on possessing me for its own ends?

Is that why I keep following?

I hear a rumble from an indeterminate source. I hear it and then feel it. I am not used to hunger of this intensity, aggravated by the scent of -

Scent. Several of them. I'm familiar with these, having prepared similar-smelling substances on Prime's ship. Executed to His specifications, but neither I nor my brothers were allowed to partake in eating them: such luxuries were anathema to those who Prime had not personally chosen. But oh, how I had wanted just a taste! The memory of that longing pulls me the rest of the way to a substandard dwelling that appears to be falling apart.

Caution slows me. There is no movement around, save the soft breeze that plays at the torn blanket serving as a door. No sounds from within. But the smell overrides my reason and decorum, and I go inside without announcing my presence.

The interior of the dwelling is utter chaos. It’s impossible that such a small structure could contain this much disarray, but that’s hardly my concern as, inexplicably, the way to those wonderful scents is completely clear: upon a small ledge next to a pit of dying coals a meal is laid out: less elaborate than the ones made on Prime’s ship, but no less tempting.

I dive my hands into them and shovel them into my mouth.

The largest of these is a pastry, flaky and still hot - I don’t care about the temperature, or the fact that the filling is incredibly tart. It’s just juicy enough to remind me that I’m utterly parched, but thankfully there is a kettle of something lukewarm that I pour directly down my throat. The rest are an assortment of sliced raw root vegetables that I eat anyway, and things that appear to be eggs that I eat raw as well.

“Loo-Kee! Where are you!”

The voice screeches into the house. I stumble around and freeze in the center of the room, not sure whether to bolt for hiding or kneel and take my punishment for disobedience. I remember that whoever lives here must be Etherian, and would rather kill me than merely punish me given what I am, but there is nowhere to hide. I pick my way through the clutter to find a place to duck behind, attempting to be quiet as I crouch down and in the process knock over a precarious tower of ill-placed dented objects. The noise makes me cringe, and I hold my breath as the Etherian enters through the door.

I needn’t have bothered. She walks right by me.

She is utterly peculiar in appearance: short and wizzened-looking, with a mane of spiked white hair that covers her entire hunched back like a shell. Her head is surrounded by several glowing winged insects. In one hand she holds a broom, one I doubt has ever cleaned this house. Her enormous eyes squint as she digs into the pile of junk against the wall, flinging items over her shoulder as she mutters to herself. While her back is turned I attempt to crawl away, hoping to escape before she notices my presence. I’m on my feet and almost to the door when I hear her say triumphantly: “Ah! There you are!”

I flinch again, expecting her to come at me with the broom (never mind that I still have my blaster), but instead she plucks a battered drawing of a blue-haired creature from a basket. “Naughty Loo-Kee! Hiding. Don’t you know we have a guest!” she says, gesturing directly at me.

“I--”

She hasn’t moved, and neither have I, and we both stare at each other. I can’t figure out her expression with those lens-enlarged eyes of hers, and while I don’t feel in any danger from her, I don’t feel safe either. She might be able to sound an alarm, send all of the Princesses after me to destroy me utterly, but what strikes fear into me is the knowledge that I have done wrong, and I must be punished for it.

I kneel, putting my height on a level with hers, and look down. "Sister, I...apologize for trespassing, and devouring the meal you must have endeavored so long to prepare. If you must-"

"Meal? Yes! You can help Razz make dinner."

"But didn't you --” I look back up at her. I’m not sure which of us is more confused. “Y-you had a meal laid out already. I ate it. All of it.” I gesture at the not-entirely-empty dishes, feeling another twist of shame for not only the theft of the food but of how slovenly I’d done it. “You had made some sort of -" I struggle to remember the word. "Pastry, or pie?"

"Pie? What pie? Now is not the time for pie. Berries out of season.” She - Razz - pushes me with her broom - not ungently - and stops once I stand back up. “It's time for leek soup! Come, come!" She drops the broom, picks up a pail and shuffles out.

I stand there, rooted to the spot. Nothing compels me to stay there, yet nothing compels me to follow her either: I have been given no directive, and there is no immediate danger which I must flee. It paralyzes me, this choice, and with neither starvation nor Prime there is nothing to dictate what action I ought to take.

_ How did my unloved brother do it? _

The sky outside is growing dimmer, and I have no shelter, no guide. My belly is full, for now, and while whatever it is I ate might fuel me for however long, I’ve still no clue how to sustain myself in this place. This Razz looks healthy enough; whatever she’s doing has kept her alive this long, and I’d be remiss to not stay a while, and help remake the meal I’d stolen from her. My joints allow me to move again and I follow her down the trail.

At the very least, I'll learn what a leek is, and if it’s edible.


	4. Discovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our Horde clone spends time with Razz, and makes some realizations.

Sister Razz has not invited me to stay, so much as she does not actively chase me out. 

I had thought merely to follow her movements and in doing so learn how to survive this forest without starving or being eaten, and she does not seem to mind my hovering at all. When I voice a question I can only expect an answer from her half the time; during the other half she does not hear me, or gives an answer to a completely different question no one has asked. Though it seems to me that her mental faculties are not all in order, she seems very responsive to  _ something _ even though I cannot see it, and the fact that she is otherwise still whole and healthy alone in the wilderness means she was doing something right. She is remarkably spry, and though some of her foraging quests for rare, distinctive materials have been near death-defying, I appreciate the challenge in keeping up with her.

Sometimes, she sets out to some hidden, difficult-to-reach place, just to slide down some ancient ruins (“For fun, of course!” she tells me, when I ask her why), or to take a nap at the bottom of a small, quiet waterfall. In those cases I have begun exploring on my own, or simply observing.

In exchange for her knowledge and hospitality I assist her in whatever she requires, but since she rarely asks, oftentimes I am left to try to figure out what she is trying to do, or come up with a task of my own. Once I tried setting the inside of the house in order, only for her to dash the whole thing into a mess as soon as I’d left it. I didn’t try again.

I have amassed a small collection of items I’ve found on our excursions: a pebble shot with iridescent veins, a beetle carapace, a shard of broken old tech. I don’t know why these appealed to me, but I have them now. Even at her most clutter-inducing, Razz has never touched them, or moved them from where I’ve left them.

She calls me “Dearie,” a term I reject outright as a name - I had none and will be given none, especially one that sounds like that. I soon realize she calls many things “dearie,” from plants to insects to her broom to the non-existent Loo-Kee, and the name grates on me less. It gives me an epithet to respond to if she has something to say to me, even if there is a high chance she was talking to something else.

She is the one who notices that I have not been sleeping. I had been operating under the habit that, should I need restoration, I would be summoned off the field and given any required maintenance. We clones have been blessed with increased durability and stamina, making such upkeep infrequent. But when I collapse in her garden she drags me inside (how, I do not know), clears a space for me to lie down, and gives me a blanket to wrap myself in.

I resist, trying to sit up. “I can’t. It’s not permitted…” I've never truly slept before, not since the lichen. It feels like sinking. It leaves me vulnerable. “The dreams -”

“Only good dreams tonight. No bad,” she says.

I don’t know what she means by that, but I am already too exhausted to respond. She is incorrect, at least on that occasion: I sleep without dreams at all, and am grateful for it.

\---

As the days go by I do indeed dream, but I would call them neither “good” nor “bad.” But I still have them, and being acquainted with them I find they distress me less.

My residence at Razz’s house seems to have become official: unlike Razz, who never falls asleep in the same place twice, I now have a dedicated sleeping space. She has allowed me to keep the blanket, despite my efforts to give it back, but I find the sensation of something wrapped around me helpful in my sleep. I have cordoned off a small area in a shadowed corner of the house with my slowly growing collection of items, and it’s almost like having an assigned tank back on the Velvet Glove. Except we never had assigned tanks to keep and call our own. That would have been anathema to Prime.

One day during the explorations of some First Ones ruins, I find a still-usable data pad. I cannot read the language nor upload my own, and it lacks a stylus, but through trial and error I am able to find a rudimentary recording program to upload my findings for future reference. However, the sound of my own voice played back to me, Prime’s yet not Prime’s, is disconcerting enough to encourage me to assemble my own makeshift stylus. I find the silence writing provides preferable.

The more I write, the less I confine myself strictly to observations. Recording the direction of a flock of migrating birds leads to also recording my opinions on the event (I will miss them; their chatter woke me up earlier than I liked but I found their antics amusing). Listing the ingredients for the poultice Sister Razz made for a scrape I sustained prompts idle wondering on my (and by association, my brothers’) capacity for healing without the aid of amniotic fluid. Wondering about my brothers led to thinking about what I might say should I meet them again, about how well they might be faring, prompting a delayed sense of responsibility (Am I their keeper? Have I abandoned them? Do they need me?). Describing the ecosystem within a cave Razz and I explored leads me to reminisce about the impossibly delicate creatures living in the dark, so fragile yet so suited to their crystalline environment, of the striking colors of the minerals clustered within, and how in awe I was at such an elaborate and complete world only just hidden from the light of day. 

And I wondered why, in the face of such life, Prime would have commanded to cast out the shadows where such life must have dwelled.

_ Because He hated it. _

Why did He hate it so?

_ Because… _ I did not know.

Why did He call such things impure? In the cave, I was the impurity, so dangerously close to knocking this perfect ecosystem out of balance with one misstep.

He called such things impure because they were not Him. He called us His chosen because we were made of Him; other worlds, other creatures, were not, and therefore needed to be brought into His light.

But the cave did not need His light. Etheria did not need His light. Maybe none of the worlds He conquered needed anything from Him at all.

Thousands of worlds, millions upon millions of minuscule, precious, perfect systems such as this, gone. And I feel an emptiness, a loss, a sadness for things I have never seen, whose existence I have never known, never had the chance to know, maybe helped destroy with my own hands.

Prime is just. Prime is good. Every world rebuilt in His image is blessed. Every world destroyed deserved His wrath.

But that can’t be true. Because maybe this world is good…  _ because _ He is not in it.

I stare at the words I have written. Just the act of thinking those words would have had me slated for reconditioning. 

I do not delete any of them. 

\---

Sister Razz has suddenly decided that the plants provided by her garden are not what she wants to eat, and so we trek to a new section of the forest I am not familiar with. The Whispering Woods, as she calls them, seem to have no fixed points so as to be mapped accurately, despite my best attempts to do so. Yet, Razz seems to know exactly where to go, and if I follow her, paths somehow connect without the need for such hard data.

“How do you remember where to go?” I’ve asked her.

“Remember? Too old to remember,” was her reply. “Razz just does it without thinking!”

On this day we find a meadow, and while it is filled with tall grains and grasses, that is not what we came for. Instead Razz keeps low to the ground, muttering to herself. I hold back, keeping watch for predators (some of my old training has not yet left me, it seems) when I hear her cry out.

“Sister Razz!”

It is not a cry of distress. “Right on time!”

In a small patch where the ground is still damp, Razz kneels by a fallen log. In its shade grow shoots of an unfamiliar plant, bright green and still young, some taller with pale orange buds. Those are the ones she picks, gently snipping at the top of the shoot so as to not pull the whole thing out of the earth. Out of habit I push the basket beside her so she doesn’t dump her entire harvest directly on the ground.

“What are these?”

“Firefly clover! Best before they blossom. Only grow once every two years!” She plops a bud into my hand. “Try!”

I know I need some things cooked before I eat them, else they make me sick; however, I trust her judgment. I don’t expect much, and the initial taste seems to prove me right - until the petals open up on my tongue, and I crush it to the roof of my mouth, releasing such vibrant flavor. It’s both sweet and savory; the delicate herbaceousness of the petals commingling with the sweetness of the nectar and earthiness of the pollen. The taste lingers, heady for such a small bite. I want more.

I kneel beside Razz, picking more and eating a few more myself, when she stands abruptly with the basket in her hands. “All done. Time to go!”

I look up at her, then around the patch wistfully. “But...there’s still more,” I say, licking pollen off my fingers.

“Yes? And?”

“Aren’t we going to pick all of them?”

“Do we need all of them?”

She shuffles away, leaving me and the remaining blossoms behind. I want to stay and glut myself on them -- Razz has the basket, she doesn’t need me, I can stay here for as long as I want -- but a sense of responsibility pulls me up and I follow her away. But it seems like such a waste.

Razz does not allow me to help her in preparing our evening meal - wise of her, as she has caught me sneaking more of the blossoms. Some are jarred for later, while we eat the rest with stewed green shoots. However, once I’m certain Razz is asleep, I leave in the night, hoping to collect the rest of the clover for myself.

I don’t know how I find the way. Perhaps it is like what Razz had said: doing without thinking, and thoughtless I am driven by my appetite and yet also pulled along by something I cannot see. Like I am able to sense where the field is, feel it, without maps, without instruction. 

I run toward it, like it’s calling me. I don’t know what  _ it _ is, but it is not like Prime’s directives nor like the thrumming of the hive-mind. Something...vibrant and lyrical, singing to me.

I reach the meadow and the music stops. There is the full light of multiple moons, the cool air, a very slight breeze. I pause at the edge of the grass, suddenly aware of every sound I make. There’s a vibration in the air, a sense that I must not let myself be seen, and I creep to where I last remember leaving the remaining clover.

It’s impossible to miss now. Those small, pearly buds are now open and alight, glowing with the fireflies that they are named after and which drink their nectar. A stiff breeze might blow them all away, and so I hold my breath and move ever slower, crouching lower to the ground, watching the delicate dance of golden lights. This is the opposite of my experience with the lichen: I am not lulled, but attuned, my senses heightened, feasting on the scene before me rather than gorging myself on the remaining flowers.

Something to my left moves and I freeze. My stillness is rewarded by the entrance of a six-legged deer and her fawn, creatures I had only glimpsed before they bounded away in fright. They graze on the clover that has already bloomed, the mother sedate while her fawn frolics playfully toward the fireflies, toward me. It lowers its head, eating the smaller grasses that grow below the clover, and it’s so close I can almost touch its fur. After a moment’s hesitation I reach out my hand, and its snaps its head up, its four green eyes boring directly into my two.

It doesn’t appear afraid of me. Perhaps it doesn’t know any better. As it licks its chops its green tongue flicks at its lower eye in what looks like a wink. Almost as if it is teasing me, at my audacity to try to steal what was freely given, reminding me to wait my turn as I have already partaken in the harvest. There is enough for all, not just for Razz and myself, and it is to be shared. I extend my hand and it lowers its muzzle, sniffing my palm for any treat I may be offering. After an experimental lick, it wiggles its tail and bounces back to its mother.

Perhaps it is here to teach me a lesson. Or perhaps it’s merely just another animal. Regardless, I feel satisfied on a level I cannot define: that I have caught a glimpse of something right and whole, that has offered me its blessing.

What harmony there is here!

I feel buoyant, heady, like I have drunk forbidden wine (or so I assume; I have never had any). I must go back to Razz, tell her what I have seen - perhaps she can help me understand more deeply.

Before I go, I take one last blossom, glowing faintly with the residue of luminescent pollen. It tastes sweeter than anything I have ever tasted before.


	5. Damnation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The clone experiences a lesson in contrasts, and does not take it well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for: sci-fi organ harvesting, self-harm, existential self-loathing.

That night I dream again. It is, as Razz would say, the bad kind.

_It’s a memory, one of many memories, perhaps not even one I was personally involved in. It does not matter. I know it has happened. Prime has conquered another world, one more resistant than the rest. The residents of that planet have all been destroyed, Prime’s own forces nearly so._

_Many of my brothers are brought back, wounded. The first to arrive are sent to the infirmary, the more desperately wounded are sealed into tanks._

_But the dead…_

_None of my brothers speak of it. Perhaps we have accepted what may very well be our fate, or perhaps any fear or misgiving is masked by joyfully bland servitude. Our dead are collected by drones, so we need never know the sensation of feeling our brethren die breath by breath in our arms. Deserters, along with those who wail and moan and express excessive amounts of grief are shot dead as traitors and added to the number._

_The system is fully automated, save for when maintenance is required. The drones transfer the bodies into the ship, quickly, efficiently, keeping the flow at an even rate so that nothing has time to rot. (The fresher, the better.) My brothers’ bodies fill tanks much larger than the ones we were birthed in, packed and sifted together like sand._

_Some of them are still alive…_

_I know this. We all must, as the ones that linger are still in the hive-mind, the ones missed by the drones or assumed already dead. A few of them, the lucky ones, are at peace, either unconscious or happy to offer themselves up one last time to Prime’s service. But the rest aren’t so fortunate to face their end so gracefully - panicking, struggling under the weight of so many bodies, knowing full well what is about to happen, babbling for Prime’s mercy and begging for someone, anyone, to know that they’re still alive, this is a mistake, please, get them out of here--_

_The process liquifies them. Quickly, but in some cases, not quickly enough. My brothers’ final pleas for mercy melt into shrieks of anguish, ignored by the hive-mind and unanswered by our creator, only to be coolly pumped up along a network of branching pipes to flow into Prime’s veins, to restore my brothers still worthy of repair, to fill the mechanical wombs from which new brothers will be birthed into the universe. I wake hearing the the very screams that brought me to life--_

\--and my own gasps as my eyes flare open in the darkness. I am huddled on my side, fetus-like, panting in the solitude of my small corner of Sister Razz’s house. I must have made a noise, woken her. My face feels wet, and my eyesight is blurred as I sit up.

I’m...weeping?

I peek around my curtain and peer into the darkness, hoping Razz is not here. I don’t want anyone to see me like this, whatever this is. 

_This_ is no good. _I’m_ no good. I shouldn’t _be_ here. 

I can’t will myself back to sleep, not seeing what I have seen, knowing what I know. I curl myself tighter, sitting up, clutching my shoulders. What happened earlier that evening, with the fawn and the fireflies, seems distant and trivial now. It doesn’t feel like it even happened. A fancy, a pleasant frivolity, crushed underneath the truth of the dream.

This flesh of mine isn’t really mine. It isn’t even Prime’s. It’s some unnatural…. _thing_ manufactured from the bodies and minds of my brothers, a product of a warped system that mocks the cycle of wholeness that surrounds me on this planet. I have borne witness to its splendor and been shown my own shame.

If not a cog in Prime’s great machine, then what am I?

_Abomination._

The word won’t leave me. It’s all I can hear, see, believe. Any sins I have committed under Prime’s light pale in comparison to the very fact of my being. How often had I nourished myself with the fluid and fear and pain of my brothers, not caring that they had suffered and died to become a part of me? To not even acknowledge their pain, to not even give a perfunctory prayer at their passing or thanks for their unwilling, unwanted sacrifice? I want to claw the flesh off my bones, to dismantle myself as what had been done to them, to rend this abhorrent shell asunder and in doing so try to make amends for my ignorance, my selfishness, my existence.

“Dearie? Are you alright?” A light glows in the room and Razz pushes aside my curtain without invitation. I hiss instinctively and shrink into my corner.

My voice shakes. “It’s nothing, sister. Go back to sleep.”

“Nothing? Ah. You can’t fool Razz. Nothing is what Razz knows best.” She grabs one of my arms firmly and pulls me out of my makeshift room, not because she is physically strong, but because I don’t have the heart to fight her off. “Come, come, Go, sit. Razz will make tea.”

I tug the remains of my cape around my shoulders and do as she says. She has already lit the fireplace, humming to herself as she sets the kettle to boil. While it heats she bustles through one of her many overstuffed cabinets and collects ingredients I know aren’t meant for tea. She brings them to the table, and with her magic crushes the leaves with mortar and pestle while she fetches the actual tea leaves. 

I dumbly watch the floating mortar and pestle move of their own volition. Razz’s use of magic no longer frightens me, and if Etheria’s magic wanted to kill me in my current state I wouldn’t have resisted. I might have even said thank you.

The kettle whistles sharply and she takes it from the fire. She pours the water into two cups and joins me at the table. “Now, let’s see your arms, dearie.”

“My…” I look down at my upper arms. Spots of dark green have bled through the fabric of my cape, wet to the touch. In my anxious frenzy I must have actually ripped at my own skin with my claws, and I didn’t feel it until now. 

Razz gently pulls my trembling hands away from my shoulders and sets them around one of the steaming cups. She’s quiet when she asks me, “Bad dreams tonight?”

“Not...not dreams. Memories.” I shake my head, wishing they were just dreams. The wounds sting but I welcome it. I deserve it.

Razz yanks the mortar away from the still-grinding pestle and pours some water into the paste that was made. The pestle clatters to the table and rolls in a semi-circle as she pours the rest of the hot water into a shallow bowl, soaking a cloth with it. She seems to be unbothered by any of this commotion tonight, humming as she dabs the wet cloth onto the scratches on my left arm.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask her. It comes out sounding like a growl.

“Eh? Doing what?”

“This! Why are you being kind to me?” I retreat from her touch. “I don’t deserve your kindness. Not after everything I’ve done. Or what I am…”

“And what are you, dearie?”

I hiss, trying to make her afraid of me, but her expression does not change: placid, a bit concerned, her eyes wide with interest rather than fear. I feel ashamed for trying. I look down at my hands, fingernails still streaked with my own blood. _Abomination._ I can’t say the word out loud. “An...interloper, an enemy. Your enemy…” 

“Enemy? Hah!” While I am still, Razz goes back to cleaning my arm. “Not a very good enemy, are you? You must be something else.”

She wouldn’t be touching me, tending to me if she knew what I was. “You don’t understand - I am unnatural! Don’t you see?” I grab her wrist, stopping her. “There is something _wrong_ with me. With what I am. I should never have been made. I don’t deserve--”

“To live?” 

I look at Razz. I have never seen this expression on her face before. Or on anyone. It’s - tender, and wise, and it stops me momentarily. No, I don’t deserve to live, but I can’t say it aloud, not when she has said it back to me as a question.

At my stillness she extracts her small, small hand from mine and gently presses it against my cheek, guiding my face to hers. I have never looked into another person’s eyes this deeply, save for Prime’s, and he was always above me; even seated I’m taller than Razz, yet her gaze holds me still. I feel an unfamiliar restriction in my stomach: not because I am bracing for reconditioning or possession, but because somehow I know that she would never do those things to me.

“But you do live,” she says softly. “You have already been made. And what will you do? Go back and unmake yourself?”

“I…” I can’t bear her gaze anymore and glance aside. Not only do I feel like I shouldn’t exist, I feel foolish for feeling that way. 

She continues: “Perhaps you were made to be something bad. But what have you been since then? You are a very good gardener. Your flowers are beautiful.”

“What?”

She points outside the window, toward the row where I have helped her plant creepers to attract more helpful insects and dissuade unwanted ones. “Yours bloom differently than mine.”

“Well…” I feel nervous? Embarrassed? My eyes have become wet again, but I don’t want to wipe at them with my still-bloody hands. “You’re the one that taught me. You would have grown those without me, that doesn’t count -”

“Doesn’t count? Count to what? Who is counting? Not Razz!” She chuckles and shakes her head as if I had made a joke. For a while she is quiet, humming to herself as she cleans my other shoulder. The tension in my stomach eases but I hold still, letting her do her work.

I’m about to speak when she says, “There’s no such thing as unmaking. Only changing. You’ve changed, hm?”

“I suppose I have.” I still want to prove her wrong, though I don’ t know why. “But what am I supposed to do? I was created to destroy you. That was my purpose.” 

“And is it now?”

I clench my fists on my knees. “No. Of course it isn’t,” I snarl bitterly. “There’s no Prime, no glorious empire, no need to sacrifice or be sacrificed at the altar of purification because it no longer exists, so _why should I_?” Again I bristle and lurch forward, to try to intimidate her. “There is no point, don’t you see?”

“No. You see.” Her broom is magically in her hand and she swats me - not too hard - on the forehead with it. While I’m stunned and rubbing where she struck me she continues, “Stop trying to be your old self. That you already doesn’t exist! The you that is here is someone else. Didn’t you hear what Razz said? Everything changes. Even Razz!”

I tilt my head and frown. It’s hard for me to imagine Razz ever changing, or having ever changed. But that might be because I still know so little about her.

She sets the broom down with a sigh. “You’ve changed so much since you’ve come here. That’s the important part! You looked around you and chose to grow with what you learned. Those that try their hardest to stay the same never learn, never love.”

I close my eyes. Prime wanted everything to be the same. If anyone in the universe wanted to stay the same, it was Him, and yet, for all His seeing and knowing, He never did learn, did He? “I never thought...I never thought I’d be different than Him,” I say. “What He made me to be.”

Razz nods firmly. She swipes up the purplish paste from the mortar in her fingers and spreads it on my wounds. “Mm. More than different. Better than different. You are what he never chose to be, and that is good.”

Is she saying that Prime never chose to be good, or that _I_ am good for choosing to not be like Him? The former sounds...plausible. The latter less so. “If you say so.”

When she is done dressing my wounds, Razz takes the last bit of clean cloth to dry my eyes. It’s such a small, sensitive gesture that it almost sets me to tears again. She smiles at me.

“I do say so! Now drink your tea, it’s getting cold.”

I clean my hands with the damp cloth and take a sip from my teacup. It’s still just water; Razz forgot to put the tea leaves in it. Of course she would. That absurd, familiar detail strangely comforts me and I can't help but smile, just a little, as I drink the water anyway.

Please don’t ever change, Razz.


	6. Drown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our clone revisits the baptismal font, and makes a decision.

It’s several days after my nightmare when I ask Sister Razz about what has been happening to me.

“There’s something in this forest that has been...contacting me,” I tell her as we hike up a hillside, for what she calls a “picnic.” Apparently on Etheria it is generally considered pleasant to carry one’s meal out of the house where one has prepared it and eat it elsewhere; I don’t disagree. “Is it the hive-mind?”

“Hive-mind? You talk to bees?”

“Bees? I don’t --” I shake my head. Sometimes I don’t know whether she is playing at something or genuinely doesn’t understand what I mean, and when I have committed to believing one thing it turns out to be the other. “My brothers and I had a connection. We...we shared a mind,” I say, trying to explain it in a way that makes sense, both to her and to me. “We could communicate our thoughts to Prime without speaking. When He...died, it was lost.” I catch up to her. How is someone so old so fast? “But I still keep...sensing something. In the same way I could sense the thoughts of my brothers, but I don’t recognize it.”

“Hmmmmm,” says Razz. She gives no further comment. I press on, “Whatever it is, it’s like it’s been...guiding me, since I came here. I thought I was just imagining it. Or maybe it’s just a coincidence.” She still makes no further reaction to my commentary, and I sigh.

We sit down on a flat-topped boulder and there have our meal. Today, we have sandwiches: a simple yet brilliant foodstuff invention as far as I am concerned, being both portable and endlessly customizable. The sky is clear, the wind calm, the only noises are the calls of insects seeking one another. 

From our vantage point, something catches my eye: a glint, a ripple of light. We have not been yet in that direction to my knowledge. What’s out there? A First Ones ruin, a crashed ship, some remote Etherian residence? I ask Razz what the glimmer is in the distance and she says, “It’s not a coincidence.”

“I didn’t say it was?”

“You finding Razz. You followed something to my house, didn’t you? Ate my pie.”

Oh,  _ now _ she remembers the pie. “I don’t know if I did for sure. I remember smelling it, but before that, I think it might have been something else.”

“And what could that something else be?”

“I don’t know! That’s why I’m asking you!”

“Shush. No need to get excited.” She takes the last sandwich before I can grab it. “You’re the one with the notes,” she says in between chews. “You must have come to some guesses, haven’t you? I see you frown when you write.”

My ears flick down and my eyes dart away in that emotion I’ve come to recognize as embarrassment. Facial expressions were, of course, forbidden to clones by Prime’s decree; now it seems I have been committing blasphemy much more easily and unconsciously than I had surmised. “I’ve...considered some possibilities,” I tell her.

“Such as?”

“One, that I might be going insane. That the sudden destruction of Prime and break from everything I have ever known has left total and irreparable wounds on my psyche.”

“Two?”

It’s refreshing how little the first possibility disturbs her. Granted, I’m not over-invested in that one either. “Two, that I’m really sensing my brothers - scattered as they are - rebuilding our own hivemind. It just feels alien because we have never established one without Prime before.” This one seems plausible, but I haven’t been around any of my brethren for a while to make sure. If there are any like me in this forest I haven’t found them yet.

“Three?”

“That perhaps there’s something in this forest, some creature or entity, that’s signalling to me. That only I can hear. But I’ve looked for some evidence and so far there is none.”

Razz hears the unspoken hesitation in my tone. 

“And four.”

I inhale. This one seems to be the hardest one to consider, to the point that I have avoided even writing it or trying to think about. “That...the magic, the planet itself, is calling to me. Like it seems to have called to you.” I look at Razz; she looks back up at me, her eyes wide as always, chewing the remains of her sandwich.

“And?”

“And that’s all.” I hug my knees.

“What’s wrong with the fourth one, dearie?”

“Because it’s impossible!” I shake my head. “I’m not...I don’t even think I’m something that can naturally exist, surely my brothers and I must have been modified from our original genetic state.” I look down at my claws, flexing them again, taking care this time not to break my skin. “I’m manufactured, little different than a machine. Not only that but I am an alien to this world. Perhaps all worlds.” I face away from Razz. “Why would Etheria want to...welcome me when I am a foreigner? An invader?”

“You an invader? Hah!” Razz burps and jostles me from the back. “Razz has welcomed you. Razz is of Etheria. There is no difference.”

I soften and smile at her, a little; but it sounds too simple to be true. “But...how? Why?” I lean against her, taking care not to press my full weight onto her given how small she is. She rubs my shoulder. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Oh, but it does. It has happened before.”

I sit up. “It has?”

“Mm-hm.” Razz gestures for me to lean on her again and I do so, turning my gaze to the sky. 

And she tells me about Mara.

-

When Razz has done, the sky has turned from blue to pink, the forest below us becoming gloomier. As the moons set, the glimmer on the horizon returns.

“You should follow it,” Razz says, packing the remains of our picnic. “See if it is a coincidence or not.”

It feels like so little time has passed. “You think I should follow it?”

“It doesn’t matter what Razz thinks. What do you think?”

I sit up, get to my feet. “I think...if I don’t find out what it is now, I’ll only be left to wonder what it might have been. And then I’ll forget.” Which would be its own tragedy; tragic because it would no longer even be a memory.

Razz cups my cheek. “Then go. Razz will always welcome you.” There’s something so sad and fond in her eyes: I realize she is looking at Mara, not me, and I understand her just a little bit more than I had before. I clasp her hand, then go and follow my mystery.

As I travel my mind continues to think about a person I have never met, an enemy from millenia ago, who walked such a similar path to mine. Born to fulfill a purpose and cut off from that very purpose, for the love of a beautiful place. Chosen not because she was special, but because she was there, and open to the choosing.

Is that all it takes? I feel like it should require more. Penance. Promise. Suffering.

No, that doesn’t seem right. It’s not as if Mara did not suffer for her choice. Or that Razz did not, remembering her, losing her.

It’s almost as if suffering comes regardless of what one chooses.

What is the _point_ then?

I find myself growling in frustration, and in my cloud of anger I lose sight of my goal. For a while I pace in a small clearing, angry at myself for losing the thread, fuming at the circumstances that put me into asking these unending questions. Life under Prime was indeed painful, but it was a known pain, familiar, predictable to the point of banality. None of this...wrestling.

(That was a lie. Internal turmoil existed under Prime, only ignored, suppressed, forcibly eradicated. But it always came back.)

I take several deep breaths, clench my fists, close my eyes, and allow myself to calm down. Razz taught me that the emotions must be given time and space to come out and disperse, rather than driving them inside in a frenzied loop that would only make me weaker, more afraid. It is a process; I am used to the seemingly efficient recycling of pain, so this purging of emotion - from the inside out, rather than outside in - takes practice.

Once my mind is clear and I am quiet, I find my bearings. The glint reappears, and with it a pure-sounding tone. Was it this clear before? I don’t think so. It has become more insistent, telling me to not get so wrapped up in myself; there will always be time for that later, but this moment will pass if I do not pursue it.

It’s so close - a slide down a hilly path blocks sight of it with trees and I run faster, not wanting to lose my chance. I push aside branches and brambles until finally I see it before me: the edge of water, lapping quietly against a shore coated in smooth stones.

I have never seen a body of water this large on Etheria before. There are oceans, I know that, but a far distance from here: in the forest I’ve come across streams and brooks and ponds, but none so vast as this lake. It glows a gentle purple-blue, not from bioluminescence but from the light of the moons alone. 

A beautiful sight, but one unsettlingly familiar.

The trees stand around the lake, looking down at me like rows of my brothers; but instead of chanting in condemnation, they rustle softly, deeply in the wind. No Prime to bow before, to guide me in; just the gaze of the moons and millions and millions of stars.

I kneel on the shore, my breath caught in my throat. It's an impulse. Am I to be judged here, to have any shadows purged from my soul? I think back on my time here - months, living with Razz and exploring on my own - and I feel no shame in the joy I experienced. It has all been...good, what shadows can there be?

But there is one, and I sink down, pressing my head against the cool pebbles in the sand.

The shadow is the one inside my mind. The one that whispers to me, in a voice i am no longer certain is mine or Prime's, that I don’t deserve any of this. All this...goodness should not be mine to partake in.

The next thought, more solid, and as I think it I feel supported, if not in spirit then in body by the ground itself: if I do not deserve this, then I also did not deserve to be created by Prime. That fact exists, whether I wish to acknowledge it or not. Who is to say what is or isn’t deserved? It is an opportunity, a circumstance, a data point. Nothing more and nothing less.

Then, the question: _so what will you do with it?_

The question jolts me and I sit up. The voice was mine yet not mine. There are so many choices! What if I choose the wrong one? So many terrible outcomes - at least in the Horde there was unity, there was structure, there was a plan. (Was there a plan? Once Prime had conquered the entire universe, what use would there be for His clones then?) I am frightened: I squeeze my eyes shut but I stare into an abyss, a maelstrom, that threatens to wrench me from the precious little I hold dear, to subject me to suffering I cannot comprehend.

Words, quiet and unbidden, they can’t be mine, yet somehow are: _What you choose not important. What’s important is that_ you  _ choose. _

Choose to submit, choose to refuse, choose to flee: each decision becomes yet another data point, spiraling to the next and to the next, regardless of any attempts to hold it back. Every moment, every life, every molecular structure, from least to greatest, weaving themselves together in an expansive, endlessly intricate web, shifting pattern with each fleeting, minute change in countless dimensions. Always connected yet always changing, past rippling into the present teeming with millions of possible futures. I can waste an entire lifetime (How long do I have left?) following a single thread, yet can gain so much in an instant. It makes Prime’s hive-mind look crude, paltry, and shallow in comparison.

And it beckons me to join the tapestry.

I take a breath and stand. The lake glows before me, silent.

I take one step, then the next, and let the waters cover me.

When my brothers and I were formed we were programmed with basic survival mechanisms already ingrained, so that Prime would not have to teach us and so that He would not lose us to often-encountered obstacles like violent terrain or weather - which is to say, I already know how to swim, so drowning was not an immediate concern. The ports on my body also are protected, as during my time with Razz I've managed to create makeshift caps for them to prevent anything from crawling in.

There's something in the back of my mind that keeps thinking, why aren't I turning back? Something should stop me. There could be _things_ out there. Why aren't I stopping me? Something must be forcing me, and I should resist. 

But I keep moving, under my own power. My own choice.

The water fully covers me, and a current pulls me off my feet. I give up walking and lean into swimming. The water is cool, warmed near the surface thanks to the lingering heat of day, unlike the constantly chilled liquid in the Velvet Glove's ceremonial pool. Deep enough to swim in, to submerge in, to drown in. I hold my breath and duck my head under; unlike much of the forest this lake is lit only from above, and from what I can see I am alone, hovering in that soft-edged space between light and darkness.

On faith I stop moving, and feel myself suspended; I turn over, facing the sky, and open my eyes.

Above me, the moons - six of them, now - glowing softly above me, in shades of blue and violet and yellow. Around them, stars, steadily pulsing, glittering like faraway crystals swirling in the galaxy. And surrounding me, more stars, mirroring and continuing the wonder above them, bringing heaven to earth to kiss one another for one instant in the smallest of spaces, with only myself as witness. And as I read the ancient inscriptions of the stars something becomes very clear.

Nothing in this universe has a right to exist, and  _ yet everything does,  _ and that makes each thing all the more impossible and beautiful and good.

Including me.

I let myself linger there for...minutes? Seconds? An hour? The passage of time feels as suspended as I do. But gradually I begin to feel cold and a little tired, so I turn and swim back to shore, my strokes easy and light. As I touch solid ground, I feel neither weary nor excited, and after a moment's pause while looking up at the sky once again I can identify what it might be.

For the first time in my life, I feel something like peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was harder for me to write than I had anticipated, as it takes a lot from my own experience: in particular, having been baptized twice. The first time, I was a child and pressured into doing it for the sake of 'being a good witness', regardless of my own feelings and reasoning that I wasn't ready to make that step. The second time was years later, as an adult, at a different church, of my own volition.


End file.
